Cheese and Ham Rolls

We’ve spent the last week of 2013 and the first week of 2014 chatting, laughing, watching movies, swimming, gardening, playing outside, and eating… oh so much eating!

It seems all we have done for the past few weeks is jump from one meal with family or friends to the next. It’s been lovely, but the kids have started rolling their eyes at the thought left-overs for dinner every night. So I’m trying to come up with some interesting ways to use up left-overs…

Today we made cheese and ham rolls… but not your average boring rolls, we made hot rolls with the cheese and ham baked in the middle of them, all warm and gooey and delicious!

a pinch of bread improver (optional but it makes them lovely and fluffy)

1.5 cups of ham finely chopped

1.5 cups grated cheese (we used mozzarella)

mixed herbs

1 egg

1 tbsp milk

Instructions

Add the yeast and honey to the warm water and set it aside till it bubbles a little (that way you know your yeast is alive and well).

Mix the flour, salt and bread improver in a large bowl or in the bowl of your bread maker.

Add the oil into the yeast mix and give a gentle stir.

Add the yeast mix into the flour and either mix by hand, or with a mixer or in your bread maker. Knead well (or just let the machines do that) and set it aside in a warm place to rise for the first time.

The first rise should take about an hour (depending on how warm your spot is or your bread machine settings) and the dough should more than double in size.

While your dough is rising chop your ham finely and mix it with the grated cheese and a good pinch or two of mixed herbs.

After the first rise give it a quick knead on a well floured surface, to knock all the air out of the dough them make it into a rough sausage shape.

Cut your dough sausage into 16 equal bits (more or less depending on how big you want to make your rolls).

Make a rough ball from each piece of dough, flatten it with your hand and put a good dollop of ham and cheese mix in the middle. Carefully pull the edges of the dough in to the centre to enclose the ham and cheese, making sure it is closed up well.

Place the ham filled ball of dough pinched sided down into a well greased baking tray leaving a fair amount of space between each one as they will almost double in size when they rise (one day I will find a dish big enough to cook all 16 of these!).

Beat the egg with the milk and brush the top of the rolls with the egg wash.

Cover the dish with some cling wrap or a damp tea towel and set the rolls aside somewhere warm to rise.

The second rise will take about 45 minutes and the rolls should almost double in size.

Once risen, brush them again with a little more egg wash, sprinkle the top with herbs and pop them into a hot oven, about 200 Celsius, for 25-30 minutes or until they are golden on the top.

3.2.1255

I’m slowly working through all the left-overs and I’m slowly getting back to a kinda normal schedule after two glorious weeks of holidays. Things will still be a little random around here for the next few weeks while the kids and I make the most of the summer holidays, but you can expect a few posts each week while I ease back into life and work again!

This was fantastic! Made them yesterday & they were gobbled up very quickly – always the best way :) could make lots of versions of this!

Lorisays

I made these for lunch today, they were delicious. I have fresh yeast so used that and I had some cheese and ham left over from the middles so I sprinkled it on top of the first egg wash on top of the buns. Yum yum yum. Thanks for sharing this recipe.